My Nordic October was absolutely amazing!!
Over the fall break I had to opportunity to travel to my gorgeous American friend Rachel's host family's- house. It was so cool to spend 4 days with a host family so different from my own.
My friend is living in a small town (though she denies that it's small- but then again she's from a town of less than 3,000 people ) called Fredrikssund, which is 45 kilometers from Copenhagen.
And yes, AFS gave me permission to travel to Denmark alone :D
The adventure started with mild panic - as I was alone in a country I had never set foot in and I couldn't find Rachel - but that lasted approximately 5 minutes because we bumped into each other just by chance :D
We then took a metro, a train, one bus (maybe two) and then walked more than a kilometer through wood-lined streets before arriving at her host families picturesque orange-roofed home.
🚇🚝🚌🚶💼 🏡
Her dog "Woody" greeted me with kisses and later I met her kind host parents and host siblings :)
That day we went on an adventure to the beautiful woods a short distance from her house. I'm still shocked by her new found athleticism! Back in the States we'd both admit to having been being too lazy to walk from our bed to the refrigerator -which was the only reason we weren't fat. But while I've been enjoying excessive amounts of pulla and enjoying having my new bedroom right off the kitchen, Rachel has been eating (BROWN) bread and biking the distance to Paris to school everyday. :D
Pulla is Finnish sweet bread. It's also proof that God loves us and wants us to be Happy :
Pulla:
But Back to Denmark...
The park was so beautiful and fortunately for me, majorly flat - all except for this one "Tarzan's hill". We saw lots of swans, which I learned are their national bird (no surprise!) Everything's lovey-dovey there! Even the coins are covered in hearts!
After a few hours of sleep we took more of our second favorite thing: public transportation! We fortunately managed to arrive in beautiful Copenhagen at around 10 am.
We were greeted by what became our favorite thing (or at least it must be our favorite because we traveled thousands of kilometers to do them) Stairs !!
Which leads me to my next point: despite how much we are fond of each other, Rachel and I have nearly opposite personality types. We were standing in front of this gorgeous super tall church, and she was frowning over the map say "this isn't the round building".
It works though, because I have literally zero patience for maps, and without her commitment to them we would have ended up taking pictures in Christiana
( if you don't know why that's not good, here's a link explaining what it is :) )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
It's a good thing we ended up going inside, because on top of murdering calories we got a spectacular view of Copenhagen:
Next on the list was seeing the changing of the Gaurd, which was quite interesting, though I confess I spent the majority of the time wondering a) how heavy those foot high bear skin hats are and b) wondering what would happen if someone would trip.
When we arrived one of the flags was up at the royal's houses which means someone royal was home. However when we were leaving the courtyard it was down! Those Danish police are sneaky! Maybe they know all the tourists congregate to watch the changing of the Gaurd - perfect time for the prince (or who ever it was) to make an exit.
After this I was starving so we went to dine on Nyhavn . After my delicious pasta dish we went to get "soft-ice " something I've never had, nor heard of before! It was so tasty - but maybe not the best choice as it was quite chilly outside already!
We walked down the longest walking street in northern Europe. Despite being extremely crowded, it smells and sounds so good. The street-musicians were quite talented, and I began to wish I had a second stomach for the foods from the many vendors.
We finally stumbled across Rachel's current fixation -the Round Tower (
Rundetaarn). And I must say, it -was- lovely. Sure got dizzy running down it though!!
We jumped in and out of the national museum, before heading to my favorite part of the trip, Tivoli.
Word's cannot describe the beauty that is our world's oldest amusement park. (Actually they probably can, I'm just not so talented)
However, Rachel has a talent for pictures I do not possess, and I will include them :)
We then took a metro, a train, a bus, and another bus home, and ate dinner food there before getting some much needed sleep.
The next day we slept in a little later, before taking a bus, a train, another train, and then a bus before arriving at the most beautiful man-made structure I have ever seen - a real castle! Like the kind kings and queens lived in, and not the Disney Princess kind!
This thing was HUGE, and after seeing what seemed like hundreds of elaborately decorated rooms we realized we needed to leave (leaving a good portion of the castle unseen) if we wanted to get home intime for dinner.
Frederiksborg Slot.
A bus, and two trains took us to Fredrikssund where we waited for the next bus to come.
It was pouring rain and after waiting for 20 minutes we realized that the bus pulling away from the station was the one needed to be on. But it was okay. We sang everything from the National Anthem to Potter Puppet Pals to Imagine by John Lennon, and by then the time until the next bus (another 20 minutes) passed easily,
and yummy Danish foods awaited us.
The final day, another rainy one, we spent in Fredrikssund's cute little down town. It was nice to see, and I thoroughly enjoyed our pizza dinner there. That night Rachel I and her host brother and sister competed in one of my personal favorites, Mario Kart! A great game, and I still smile remembering how competitive we got -- and how much Rachel loves rainbow road!!
